Desire a PS4 Pro in India?

Sony Can Not Sell You One. Want to buy a PS4 Pro in India? Too bad, as you can not do so officially with a warranty anymore. This is some thing Saikat Koley Saiko learned the hard way.
Saiko, a game character artist operating in Hyderabad, had saved up to get a PS4 Pro. Traditionally a PC gamer, he was lured to Sony’s camp on account of the exclusive games on offer such as Horizon Zero Dawn.

“I was seeking a PS4 Pro and I wished to buy it formally. It was not available anywhere in the city, not in Croma or Bajaj or anyplace. I was fed up and that I had two options – I either import or I buy it in the grey market,” Saiko tells Gadgets 360.

Though far more easily available, the PS4 Slim wasn’t an option for him because he was looking for a “no compromises encounter”. This is what the PS4 Pro guarantees with features such as 4K resolution and a higher frame rates in supported titles. Saiko didn’t want to purchase an Xbox One either.

Frustrated with waiting, he ended up buying a Singapore PS4 Pro console from eBay, hoping that Sony’s touted reliability sees him through as it does not have a valid warranty for India.

But it’s not only customers like Saiko – multiple retailers and vendors speaking to Gadgets 360 on the condition of anonymity have pointed out that the PS4 Pro hasn’t been accessible in India even though it has officially launched in India.

“No shares because February”
“I haven’t got stock since February,” an employee of a huge consumer electronics series. “We get at least a dozen queries every week but we can’t supply a single unit since Sony hasn’t given us any PS4 Experts since launch.”

“Earlier we were told that we’d find the PS4 Guru from August. That shifted to September. Then we were advised that because of Diwali we’ll just get it by November 20. On November 17 we had been told we’re not getting stocks,” a different store owner affirms. “I don’t understand why Sony India provides us the run around.”

Other have chosen for less official way of meeting demand. In Mumbai alone, there’s an influx of around 100 to 150 PS4 Pros through parallel and grey imports on a weekly basis. These are offered offline, or online through third party sellers on websites like eBay.

“I pick up 15 units a week from Dubai without neglect,” a suburban Mumbai retailer informs Gadgets 360. “There is no point in based on Sony. We heard from them there won’t be any PS4 Pro officially till next year.”

For its part, Sony India is painfully conscious of the PS4 Guru’s non-existence in retail after a formal launch.

“There will be tools for PS4 Pro in the near future, however at present we’re unsure of the exact timeline of the following lot of Guru supplies — we shall update as soon as we’ve got clearer date of availability,” the company told Gadgets 360 through email.

However, Sony has refused to provide a reason behind the same. 1 possibility could be global supply problems that Sony confessed to facing in June this year. But this doesn’t seem to be the case, together with Black Friday deals galore about the PS4 Guru in regions where it is accessible, like the US and Europe.

An explanation could lie in compulsory certification required together with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Before, Sony India has fought with this. We have seen it with the PS4 wherein Sony emptied its launching stock of 4,500 units completely. In case you weren’t one of the lucky few who got a launch unit, then you faced a very long wait to buy one since the consoles now had clearance in the BIS until they are sold, which took nearly five months. This is the same reason why the PS VR and PS4 Guru were delayed in India to begin with. Though the former is still easily available in shops across the nation.

Or maybe it boils down to price, quantity, and scale. The widely accepted install base for your PS4 in India sits at the range of 220,000 to 250,000 units including grey market sales as well as the limited PS4 Pro sold via various channels (official or otherwise) sold till date. As soon as it’s monitoring higher than what the PS3 did in precisely the exact same time frame, it’s still a far cry from Sony’s successes in other areas like the Middle East, in which the sales crossed a million PS4s two years back.

There is also the issue of pricing. The official price of a PS4 Pro in India with warranty is Rs. 38,990, although it retails via the gray market between Rs. 32,000 depending on the store. Taking into consideration the demand outstrips supply for your PS4 Pro at that price, is Sony only content with allowing the grey market pay user needs, waiting to step in if and when need hits critical mass in a price it deems fit?

Sony is advertising a console you can not buy
Where does this leave you? Previously, a loophole allowed you to pick up a PlayStation console from a PAL territory such as the UAE or UK and if something should happen to go wrong during its warranty period, Sony India could allow you to purchase a new console in 50 to 75 percent less than the sticker price. What this indicates is, you might have purchased a PS4 Guru from a PAL region and be insured for the most part. This option isn’t accessible any more.

One of the numerous PS4 Pro advertisements at IGX 2017, a Mumbai gaming event that Sony was a part of.

Despite all of this, Sony India perplexingly advertises the PS4 Guru as being available officially. In IGX 2017, a Mumbai gaming occasion where Sony took a part, there were several hoardings proclaiming PS4 Pro’s 4K FIFA 18 experience.

The initial half of 2018 sees a plethora of games that will be marketed as optimised for the PS4 Guru, such as Far Cry 5 and Dragon Hunter World to name a few, besides Sony’s own stable of exclusives like God of War, Days Gone, and Detroit Grow Individual. It is a given that the above games will soon be available officially in India, it’s only that the means to play with them at their best on console will be restricted to a couple willing to risk purchasing a console with no warranty.

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